Socketed Kabini parts are official

It took a while, but socketed Kabini parts are finally here. AMD has officially released the desktop parts, along with a new form factor and socket for the frugal chips.

The name of the platform is of course AM1 and the socket is FS1b. AMD made it clear that the market for AM1 products revolves around South America, Southeast Asia and EMEA - but in reality the new platform is for every consumer and organisation on a tight budget.

However, this does not mean that Kabini desktop parts are not competitive. AMD is not saying much about the actual SKUs, but it does say that the parts will be similar to existing Kabini chips. The top part is rumoured to be the Athlon 5350, a 2.05GHz quad core with HD 8400 graphics and a 25W TDP. It looks a lot like A4-5xxx series parts. A 1.6GHz model is on the way too.

Semprons are back, too. The cheapest socketed Kabini should be the Sempron 2650, a dual-core clocked at 1.45GHz. The Sempron 3850 is a 1.3GHz quad-core. Both should ship with somewhat slower graphics than the Athlons.

All desktop Kabini parts are said to have 25W TDPs. They are expected to cost $30 to $55. However, none of this info is official, so take it with a grain of salt. In any case AMD should have no trouble holding its own against Bay Trail D parts. The prices look good and the fact that these are socketed parts helps in some niches.

Performance is the big question at this point. The GPU should easily match Bay Trail parts, and then some. However, in the CPU department Intel will probably maintain its lead - and let's not forget Bay Trail is a lot more efficient. Intel does not do socketed Bay Trail parts, but then again it has low-end Ivy and Haswell parts for that segment.

AMD sees upgradeability and serviceability as its trump card. Intel on the other hand has integrated mITX fanless designs with similar performance and superior efficiency. It is still not clear whether FS1b boards will support upcoming Beema parts - we assume it will.